


descanso iii. although my breathing ceases, time and tide go on

by marythefan (marylex)



Series: descansos [2]
Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Character of Color, Female Protagonist, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-25
Updated: 2007-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marylex/pseuds/marythefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The workstation on the far wall of their designated astrophysics lab becomes <em>kamidana</em> almost by accident.<br/>Miko.<br/>For "The Defiant One."</p>
            </blockquote>





	descanso iii. although my breathing ceases, time and tide go on

The workstation on the far wall of their designated astrophysics lab becomes _kamidana_ almost by accident.

Perhaps, Miko will think later, it was the instinctive spiritual understanding she so admires in Dr. McKay that made him snap at Dr. Kavanagh to leave Dr. Gall's things as they remained, to just leave them _alone_.

They all know the danger inherent in this expedition, but they have been lulled into complacency behind the walls of the city and the weapons of their military bodyguards, and Dr. Gall and Dr. Abrams are only two days gone, and so they all are still shocked and bruised, anyway. As Dr. McKay turns away, he is muttering about work muddled and opportunities lost, and he leaves them standing like children in awkward silence. It is Miko who breaks the tableau, rifling through her own worktable and handing Dr. Kavanagh a calculator with a nod of the head.

The workstation remains empty. Miko arrives early in designated morning hours to discover Dr. McKay sitting on a stool, staring at the papers he has collected into piles there, and she is reminded of the way she used to sit and talk to her sister Hana at the _kamidana_ in her parents' home when she was a little girl. Dr. McKay looks ill-at-ease at having his privacy invaded, and he blusters past her like a cranky _ojiisan_, mouth set in a crooked line, and she hurries out of his way. But she finds herself with a particularly stubborn problem later in the day and removes herself to the stool he left behind, at least partly because the workstation has become an untouched oasis of calm in the bustling lab. She instinctively talks aloud through the problem the way she used to do with Dr. Abrams when he was alive, and when she realizes the variable that will fix the equation and increase energy efficiency in the city's power system, she nods her head and whispers thanks to him before she rises to present her work to Dr. McKay.

The next day she brings the small potted plant from her quarters, sitting it at the head of the workstation after she dusts the calculator and neatens the piles of papers. She looks up to meet Dr. Yamato's eye, and he gives her a gruff nod before turning back to his computer, and it does not surprise her when she returns to the lab after dinner that night to find small dishes have been spirited away from the messhall and placed on either side of the plant, holding salt and water. She places her own wooden _ofuda_, talisman of Tenjin the scholar, in the top drawer of the altar to consecrate it and sacrifices her compact - smuggled through the Stargate among her socks - for the traditional mirror.

She has no rice, but she begins to bring whatever grains or lentils the messhall has cooked in the morning to make the daily _shinsen_ food offering to the _kami_, before eating it for her own lunch. She keeps the small candles - Athosian-made, bartered with powerbars and chocolates - orderly as they appear, lit and left by others in the labs.

Twice more she enters in the mornings to find Dr. McKay sitting at the stool that remains at the _kamidana_ \- he must be intensely private, she has decided, because he colors slightly when he sees her, ducking his head not so much in respect but so that he will not meet her eye.

Late one night, she returns to the lab with the intention to study some simulation results but retreats after discovering Dr. Simpson sitting alone at the altar, hands twisted white-knuckled in her lap as her angry-sounding words slice the empty air.

She looks up from her computer one day to find Dr. Hays sitting on the stool, lips moving soundlessly, pencil rubber tapping the workstation's top as he studies a jumble of scribbled equations; he looks over and meets her eyes through the glass wall separating them and shrugs slightly, palms up, smiling with the same kind of shamefacedness Dr. McKay has shown. She slides from her seat, smiling back, and takes him to the nearby wash station, leads him through the ritual cleansing of rinsing their hands, before returning him to the _kamidana_, re-lighting one of the many candles and placing the pencil back in his hand with an encouraging nod.

_Miko_, her parents called her, shrine maiden, speaker to the dead. She can't help hoping her mother would be pleased, although she never managed to be quite the dutiful daughter, never was able to explain to her traditional father that her science was her mirror held up to nature, that her lab was her temple where she sought to observe - with the moment of clarity Dr. McKay seems to achieve - how things work together, _musubi_ and _musuhi_, the connection and harmony among all things, the place where the forces acting on you are perfectly balanced, from the dance of her whirling electrons to the stellar tidal forces held in equilibrium at Dr. Gall's Lagrangian points.

She offers prayers for Dr. Gall and Dr. Abrams, so their spirits will find peace. She offers prayers to them, asking for their intercession to the _kami_ of this place that feels so familiar and so alien, an island of steel and glass among the waves, unmarked corridors like Tsukuba's city streets, full of people trying to figure out the world.

Forty-nine days after their deaths, she goes to the southeast pier and sets afloat two paper boats with lighted candles for their spirits to ride into the afterlife, hoping it will help them find their long way home.


End file.
